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I mean, realistically I’ve always known that I wouldn’t be able to dodge him forever. That we would eventually bump into each other. His family lives here. He grew up here. He visits a few times a year.
But after nearly four years of studiously avoiding town whenever I know he’s home, I was far more surprised by Bishop’s appearance this morning than I expected. It would have been different if it was still summer, or even the holidays, when he normally returns to Cedar Point to visit his family. At least then I would have been somewhat prepared.
Instead, it was a random Monday at the end of September.
I bristle. It’s so like him to just…show up like that.
“Yeah, you’re really selling me on the whole fine thing.”
I look up, finding Leah watching me with concern. Narrowing my eyes, I shove the milk into the fridge.
She’s doing the thing, the thing she always does where she tries to be both motherly and sisterly in the same breath. She hovers like a mom but wants to sass me like a sister, and normally, I’m fine with it.
Not today though. Not when I feel so…on edge.
“I’ll be in the shed.” It’s all I say before I stride out of the room, cutting through the garage and out the side door, away from the additional questions I know are imminent.
I shiver slightly as I tromp my way across the space between our house and the shed that sits about 20 yards away, the cool breeze of the early fall morning raising the hairs on my arms and leaving goose bumps in its wake.
The last day of summer was just a few days ago, and I’ve been holding out hope that the warm weather will linger a bit longer. Clearly, Mother Nature didn’t receive all my desperate requests. I’ll need to pull out the space heater soon, one of the irritating ‘quirks’ of working in a poorly constructed shack that barely has any electricity, let alone something useful like insulation.
Better electricity, insulation, and central air and heat are at the top of the list when it comes to things I want to change once I’ve finished saving to build a new workspace. Just a few more months and I should be able to actually confirm construction dates for the spring or summer, an exciting reality that even a year and a half ago I wouldn’t have ever believed possible.
Shoving the door open, I step into the shed and flip on the lights. The halogen brightness floods the room, and I wince just slightly before blinking a few times, letting my eyes adjust.
The dusty old shed has been my escape and home to all my creative inspirations for the past two years. It does serve partially as storage for my aunt’s thrifting addiction. Leah’s goodies are all tucked away in the back half, stacked precariously on top of each other.
The front half, though, is all mine. Three rows of shelves, an old drafting desk, a pottery wheel, and an electric kiln. A sink and cleaning area in the corner and hooks to hang my aprons and lay things out to dry.
There’s nothing fancy about the place, nothing on the walls or hanging from the ceiling. No big, beautiful windows that look out to nature, just tiny ones along the roofline that barely let in any natural light. But it has served me well and provided me a place to do the work I love so much, especially when I’m irritated and need to be alone, which is more often than I like to admit.
There have been many occasions when I’ve come in here and chucked a mound of clay on the wheel in anger, allowing the methodical work of throwing a plate or bowl or vase to level me out. It calms me in a way nothing else seems to.
It’s what I wish I could do right now. I am tempted, but I have more than a few projects that need my attention, ones that are due to clients in the coming weeks. So I turn my eyes away from my wheel and instead head to the kiln.
I never expected to end up doing ceramics as a way to make a living. Hell, I never truly believed I’d ever make a living off my art, but especially not when I was focusing on dark watercolors and edgy oils and smudgy charcoals. My fingers were always stained, and I just assumed I’d be doing the artist’s hustle for the rest of my life: working on my passion when I could but filling my bank account with a paycheck from a “real job”.
Then I went to art school, which was two incredible years of stripping me of everything I ever thought I knew about art and who I wanted to be and what I wanted to create. I took a ceramics class first semester as an elective, and it became my new passion. I still love to paint and draw and many other creative pursuits, but sitting at a wheel and literally forming something that didn’t exist before? Then bringing it to life with underglaze and oxides and special design elements I come up with in my own mind?
It’s magical. I love everything about it, especially how it focuses my mind when it feels so scattered and angry.
I grab a cup and plate set out of the kiln and carry it over to my workstation to sit and examine the etchings and indents. I’ll need to do a bit of light cleanup work and apply glaze before I fire them again to finish everything off. I like to sit with each piece for a minute or two after each step of the process to make sure I’ve thought through the entire thing. It’s my way of reminding myself not to move faster than I can think. That’s how mistakes get made.
I sigh internally when I hear the door open, but I don’t move or look in that direction. Instead, I continue examining the cup I’m rotating in my hands.
“You forgot your bag in the kitchen. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything from it before you dive too deep into work.”
I hear the crinkle of the paper bag as she sets it down behind me. That’s not why she’s here. If I hadn’t forgotten that bag, she would have found some other reason to poke her head in and check up on me.
“I didn’t need it yet.”
I’m lying and she knows it. There’s no reason I would be up this early to pick up supplies from the hardware store if I didn’t need them this morning. I actually need something from that bag to work on the cup currently in my hand, but this is how we do things.
She pretends to have a reason to hover.
I studiously avoid her.
Eventually we find some sort of middle ground after she’s done poking and prodding.
